Interest in anime, especially among otaku, can be a very personal thing, and so it is often easy to consider an insult to your favorite anime an insult to you, and so you come up with all sorts of reasons why the other person might be wrong. The more extreme their response, the more extreme yours potentially can be unless you step back for a moment.
One defensive response that I know I’ve used before is that if doesn’t like your favorite show, it’s because they don’t like whatever it is you like most about the show. Using K-On! as an example, if someone talks about how they think it’s a bad show, an easy response would be, “Oh that’s just because you can’t enjoy the simple things in life,” even if that doesn’t even influence whether or not they like it.
The most dangerous aspect of this line of reasoning is that it’s not like it never applies. There are definitely times when a person hates the show for the exact reason you like it, or that they don’t pay attention to the parts that you pay attention to the most. Because these valid instances exist, it becomes very easy to think of it as a “rule,” and then for another person to see you using it and come out with their own very rigid, extreme opinion opposite yours.
Even if people disagree on fundamental levels, I think it is important for arguments not to get too unnecessarily heated and overly personal (though a little I feel is okay). However, I know that doing so can be very difficult because it only takes one person to start attaching insults to their opinion in order for everyone to be doing so, and then from there it’s all too easy to say that criticism simply should not exist at all, ever when that potentially can stifle discussion. There is definitely a middle ground in terms of discussion, even if it doesn’t necessarily exist for opinions.
OGIUE MANIAX 
People who like K-ON! would enjoy simple things in life if they had any!
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Something like this: http://fuzakenna.com/2009/08/03/the-reason-a-phrase-like-shounen-exists-is-so-youll-stop-bitching-about-shows-that-werent-meant-for-you/
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I agree, but also think arguments with fundamental logic behind them cannot be countered by those without, also it is almost impossible to argue against arguments without logic to them using those that have relatively grounded logic (ie. indirect preference [not liking when a creator does X] or instantiated preference [not liking creator X]).
Such as an argument, K-ON! is made by KyotoA, someone argues that KyotoA makes bad works, therefore K-ON! is bad.
While that seems to have a logical model, it fails as a good argument because there is no fundamental backing logic in KyotoA making bad works.
(Note: proving KyotoA made at least one good work does not nullify this argument)
That isn’t to say the person’s opinion is false, but it is too generic/subjective to be accepted by someone who has a more logical invested argument.
In other words, the person has already lost the battle (right to argue), but they remain true in their own argument, and cannot be argued against. I think this is where debates melt-down.
Ignorance and blind logic are kind of synonymous.
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The AniBlogger community recently has reminded me of the “Pecking Party” from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It seems like everyone is so defensive, that it’s insults first, discussion second. Many bloggers now a day seem less interested in debating anime, then they are in argueing over the format and style of the debate.
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I think this sort of what Ryan A was alluding to, but this boils down to making “Value-based judgements”.
For instance, someone watches a show. For the sake of argument, we’ll assume they were trying to give it a fair chance and weren’t coming into it with too much “baggage”. And it turns out that they don’t like the show. So what they try to do is to do some sort of logic dump to trace down all the aspects of the show they didn’t like and the reasons they don’t like it. Then they present their arguments as “the reason why the show wasn’t good”. Because they tried to use logic to arrive at their conclusion, they’re assuming that their opinions are sound, logical, and justified. But this is still, in fact, a value-based judgement.
A second person watches the same show, and we’ll assume the same conditions apply. This person actually loves the show. They encounter the arguments of the first viewer, and it simply doesn’t compute. Because the second person also assumes that their enjoyment of the show must be sound, reasonable, and justified, and because they’re in fact watching the same show under the same assumed conditions, they’re forced to come to the logical conclusion that the only difference here is, in fact, the bias/values of the viewer. Hence the “you’re watching it wrong” argument.
In the end, what both parties want is for the validity of their opinions to be reinforced, but feel threatened because they’re instead being categorically dismissed. The first person may accuse the second of of being a fanboy, while the second may accuse the first of being a troll. As you alluded to, both are potentially true, but not necessarily the case.
Anyway, I’ve always felt that a solution to this problem would be if people would be more tentative in stating their opinions so as to come across as less threatening. But many were taught in school that a good writer’s worth is conveyed in the conviction shown in their expressed arguments; that you always put forth your strongest arguments possible, and it’s up to the “opposing side” to counter with strong arguments of their own. But this assumes debate-like conditions with neutral observers in need of convincing, and what we’re ultimately talking about here is mostly derivatives of our own personal preferences and values. People’s opinions are based on their viewing experience and so are already entrenched; a “good argument” isn’t going to convince someone to like something they hate, or vice-versa. At best, it may at least cause them to concede that there is another valid way to look at it, but that’s about it.
You take all this and add in the legitimate “fanboys” and “trolls”, who argue for the simple sake of perpetuating the arguments, and you have the makings of most forum wars. The solution would be humility, wisdom, and sober judgement, but somehow I don’t think that’s likely to happen on the Internet any time soon.
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I think that explains what I was getting at, and I’ll just add that logical backing doesn’t necessarily equate to fact; I think logic based on a definite, subjective perspective can be used in an argument. This goes hand-in-hand with supervenience of principles (principle is subjective).
For instance, I can say I do not prefer pastel and water-colored art in anime. With that premise, I can use it to argue for/against against a series, or even a producer who uses that style often. It isn’t factual, but it allows abstraction of the argument, and can act as a logical definition/variable for operators.
One major problem I see with arguments (esp in this community) is that there are too many specifics/case-based “points” to debate. Abstraction to higher-orders offers a method for the argument to not be so… irritating I guess.
Personally, whenever I read arguments, I immediately abstract the issues where I can. I feel that is an innate human reaction related to decision-based reasoning, but it is something we can strengthen (it also might be correlated to spatial reasoning).
I believe that is sound resolution. Disagreeing, but understanding.
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Part of the problem (especially with the type of situation described here) is that people like to use objective-sounding language in delivering their subjective opinions. If someone simply likes or doesn’t like something because they don’t like it, it’s irrefutable, and nothing can really be gained by attempting to debate that point. It might be productive to discuss what is or is not liked about it, but the fact of liking or disliking is irrefutable.
Problems start to crop up when the opinion starts to use language that pulls away from subjectivity; it’s one thing to state that you didn’t like (or even detested) the writing, it’s quite another to say that the writing is “bad” or “amateurish”. When you don’t like the writing, responsibility is placed on you, the reader (or viewer, or what have you); when the writing is bad you make a claim (that may or may not have solid backing) that the other party must either dismiss by proving the writing “good” or accepting the premise that the writing is “bad” and go with ghostlightning’s maxim of “eh it’s just a guilty pleasure”. Not to mention the nasty meanings encoded in a phrase like “bad writing” or “good writing”: it isn’t a terribly huge logical leap to assume that liking “bad writing”, or disliking “good writing”, is a mark of inferior taste, intellect, or judgment, and react accordingly; similarly, liking “good writing” and disliking “bad writing” reassures like-minded people of their good taste, intelligence, and/or judgment.
Unfortunately, many examples abound where the effects are not nearly as obvious as the ones above, where vocabulary and diction intertwine to produce something that looks like (and mostly is) opinion, but relies on premises assumed to be fact. When you transmute your (or another’s) opinion about the work into an intrinsic attribute of the work (“like” vs. “good”; “dislike” vs. “bad”), consciously or unconsciously, you’re setting yourself up for a potentially nasty circular debate.
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Basically this. Though it’s still important to consider what makes a work “good” or “bad” in general, and that also tends to be a hard thing for people to find as well.
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Yes, I’ll re-enforce what N mentions about considering what makes a work “good” or “bad” in general and extend it as being subjective definitions of good/bad. Good and bad are not absolutes, so from person-to-person we need a definition (or something they can explain) otherwise we just get… “that sucked, it’s terrible” with no explanation behind the reaction. (Fine for them, but imo, that screams “ignore me”…. I see no issue with complaints+backing.)
Most persons do this, but when they have a well-fleshed [documented, blogged] framework for judging works, it greatly helps in understanding. Though, anomalies will arise, I’m sure.
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It’s less about the quality of the subject media but the dominance/survival of the viewers and their pet opinions. They need to tell everyone how good their taste is, or at least avoid looking bad.
When the argument is going against my favor, I can always dismiss the show as a ‘guilty pleasure’ and not account for it in the ledger of taste. LOL
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Haha — I believe there was a discussion about “guilty pleasures” in the blogosphere not too long ago. And you’re absolutely right — what this points to is people trying to use their arguments to make themselves look good to others — much like politics, and everything else. I would point to the futility of this (I think a given person’s reaction to anime is inherently personal and subjective, even if there are objective components), but how many times have we heard newcomers say “Oh, that show? I heard it sucks…” It is, in fact, an influence-driven market.
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This is true theoretically, but I think people write about anime for precisely because it’s personal, and thus disagreement becomes very personal. If the majority of bloggers wrote about anime from a distance, well…that’s another story.
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This is a good example of being tied into specifics.
“Writing about anime” can be generalized to “expression of media-based experiences.” Honestly, if you take anime out of the equation and replace it with another entertainment medium, the expression is going to be consistent for individuals more often than not; ie. the way I express about anime is basically the same as expression about manga, film, music, whatever I’m into.
A useless abstraction (we aren’t using it), but it illustrates the issue with attachment to “specifics.”
Arguing on fewer, but broader, generalized aspects should provide quicker and cleaner resolution of arguments when compared to arguing on the small scale for every minute and subjective detail of a specific experience. There still may be disagreement, but if it can be recognized as something larger and not specifically related to an “instance” I feel we can have a greater understand of why there is a disagreement (or resolve).
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Well I mean, I think the fundamental purpose behind discourse on the internet (or at least the majority of it) is that its intrinsically tied to identity. When we write about anime, anime as a subject is merely a way for us to practice identity. Yet if we step away from anime as the vehicle for identity, discourse itself as a meta level becomes the conduit for identity. Then meta-trolling becomes more effective; i.e. “well, the fact that anime-X is crap is irrelevant is because, now, your blogging style sucks!” This is theory is supported through various anitations/ani-nouto related drama.
Ultimately, animu is srs bsns.
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“practice identity” sounds a bit like faking identity. I’m not sure considering identity with regards to expression is the best course of action; this is synonymous with “caring about what others think of you” imo.
Totally a tangent though, since my example content was arbitrary.
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It’s really very simple.
Entertainment is an emotion-based function. Entertainment (anime, TV, movies, comics, fill in the blank) seeks to engage the emotion, and thus make a connection. You FEEL you enjoy (y).
This is where I question just how popular some shows actually are with the Ameriotaku. ARE they actually being engaged by it, or are they just watching what someone said was ‘the new IN show to watch’ and their emotion, their passion rises when that lemming manner is challenged?
Emotion ≠ Logic. Ergo you cannot have a logical argument about emotional content. You can NEVER convince someone that something they like/hate is really bad/good in any quantified. bare logical manner.
You CAN debate qualities, but then so much is subjective, there’s no baseline. I can watch an episode of Mazinger Z (the original) and marvel at the heavy lines, the airbrush effects, the clever way of saving money by re-using scenes and wallow in the sheer entertainment value of a kid making a big robot punch a mechanical monster that has giant shears on its head, while another person says “That’s OLD! YUCK!” and they run back to the latest MOE maid harem thing because Sakura2837 told them this was the best show ever and everyone was d/ling it.
And you can see right there emotion rears its head once again. :)
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“This is where I question just how popular some shows actually are with the Ameriotaku.”
well, have you conducted any surveys?
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Actually, no, and what would be the point? I’m not trying to prove anything, nor ‘convert’ anyone. How could there be any honesty about it? Who would admit, in this highly charged Interwebtube culture, to watching a show ‘just because’? “I saw the torrent was out there so I ganked it”.
I think, from long observation, the actions of the Ameriotaku speak more loudly and with more honesty then any survey could hope to document.
Of course this is an opinion, and all opinion are suspect because of their emotional loading. Or as the pundits say, “YMMV”
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No but see a survey is the only way to actually deduce the in _intent_ of someone, whereas merely relying on social statistics ultimately fails to reveal the motivations behind actions. It can be a methodologically rigorous survey, I think it would be very revealing. With correct sampling methods, it wouldn’t be too difficult. People are honest too, we have the curtain of anonymity. I think you overestimate the stigmatism attached to the ‘highly charged interwebtube culture’ in that particular way.
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I don’t know about mixing honesty, anonymity, and The Internet into one package.
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